


Mr. and Mrs. Herondale

by ashesandhoney



Series: It Came From Tumblr (Ficlet Collections) [1]
Category: Infernal Devices Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: F/M, Family Fluff, Ficlet Collection, newlyweds
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-14
Updated: 2018-01-12
Packaged: 2018-07-15 01:46:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 5,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7200641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashesandhoney/pseuds/ashesandhoney
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of shorts about Will and Tessa early in their marriage and while their children were small.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Mrs. Herondale's Bracelet

Tessa leaned against the rail and looked out over London and tried to clear her mind. She thought about practicing the little concentration tricks she’d read about that were supposed to make it easier to learn to use magic. She was terrible at them and thinking about using magic wasn’t going to help her mood. Magic was the last thing she needed to be thinking about after the dinner party she had just attended.

She reached down and picked up a stray piece of the roof shingle and turned it in her hands a few times. She finally let all her attempts at being a proper lady go for a split second and turned and hurled the piece of slate across the rooftop with a sharp yell.

Will ducked it.

“I’m sorry,” she said looking at him as he righted himself slowly. He had arrived near silently and she was surprised to see him. He still wore his suit but the collar was unbuttoned and the tie was missing. His hair was just a little more rumpled than it had been when he’d appeared before the party so she could tell him whether or not he looked appropriate. She knew that he was just showing off.

“You look heartstoppingly beautiful you great peacock,” she’d said to him looking up at the mirror but not turning to look at him directly. A maid was weaving blue ribbons that matched her dress into her hair when he’d appeared. The maid had flapped at him and sent him away a moment later and she’d seen him make a little bit of a face in the mirror as the door was shut on him.

He still looked heartstoppingly beautiful but this wasn’t Will brushed and dressed for company. This was just Will and he was even more beautiful for that. She still wore her evening dress as well. Indigo taffeta that rustled and shone and fell back off her shoulders and down to a short train. It was a beautiful dress. It showed off her neck and her arms and was the most fashionable cut. It also made it easy to see that there was not a rune on her.

Will came over and stood near her. He leaned down and kissed her shoulder and she smiled as she looked away from him at London.

“He’s the Head of the Paris Institute,” Tessa said and Will nodded, his mouth still against her skin for a moment longer than a kiss really required. The dinner had been an important meeting as well as a fancy party. 

“He’s an idiot,” Will said.

“He called me Miss Gray all night,” Tessa said.

“Idiot,” Will said again.

“He was just being rude?” Tessa asked.

“You have to be a Shadowhunter to carry a Shadowhunter name,” Will said.

“And I’m a warlock,” she said. “He was just reminding me in case I’d forgotten? I haven’t forgotten.” To make a point she cycled through a couple of remembered changes, none much different in size from her so her dress stayed in place but the changes in her hair left it falling out of the complicated style. When she turned to look at Will, he was unperturbed by her little display of magic. He pushed a piece of loose hair backed from her face and gave her a small smile.

“You, Mrs. Herondale, have as much right to that name as I do,” Will said.

“Do I really?” she asked.

“I married you, all of you, the piece of you that is a Shadowhunter, the piece of you that is a warlock, if there is a piece of you that is a pink pony, I will marry that part too,” Will said and he startled a laugh out of her.

“Aren’t I going to sully your good name, Mr. Herondale?” she asked but she was smiling now. She couldn’t help it. Even thinking of the whispers she had heard from Clave members over the last few months about just that topic couldn’t keep the smile down. He caught her face in his hands and tilted her chin up to look at him.

“You are the most incredible person to ever carry this name. You are Mrs. Teresa Herondale and I wouldn’t have it any other way but if you decide you don’t want it, I’ll change my name too. We can become the Codfish family if you wish but we will always be together,” Will said.

Tessa leaned in and kissed him, “I like being Mrs. Herondale.”

“I had something made for you,” Will said and he kissed her again and then held up a hand to stop her from saying anything as he continued, “It was supposed to be ready for the wedding but I had to go outside the Clave to get it and I have made a few errors in contracting a mundane artisan. I was going to keep it and give it to you at our first anniversary but I’m going to give it to you now instead.”

He pulled a box out of his pocket and held it out to her. It was dark on the rooftop and once she had it in her hands he came to stand behind her with a witchlight in hand to light up the space. He circled his arms around her waist and looked over her shoulder. She settled back against him for a few moments before she lifted the lid on the box. Inside, on a square of dark velvet was a gold bracelet and held in place by the fine chains was a symbol made of solid gold.

“Shadowhunters wear our marriage vows on our skin. A rune here,” he touched her breast bone just above the line of her dress, “and another here,” he touched her arm, “I can wear the runes on my skin but you cannot. I would like you to have this so you can wear the wedded union against your arm as I wear mine.”

“Not my heart?” she asked in a very soft voice as she traced the pattern of the rune with her finger tip.

“This is as powerful as any rune,” Will said touching the jade pendant Jem had given her, “Now you have one for your arm as well as one for your heart.”

Tessa turned and let him lift the bracelet out of the little box and fasten it to her wrist. She watched him as he did it. His fingers were long and graceful even in the dark, even when he fumbled with the clasp. The glint of gold was recognizable even in the poor light. She took his hand and unbuttoned his cuff so she could line their arms up. Will lit up the witchlight again and she could see the stark outline of the dark rune on his skin and the exact same symbol in gold against hers.

“I love you Mrs. Herondale,” Will said, “You will always be Mrs. Herondale to me. Always.”


	2. Sing Me to Sleep

Will curled himself up and pressed his face into her. She lay beside him in the narrow infirmary bed and stroked his hair. He was going to be fine. They both knew that now but there had been moments after he’d been brought in, bleed and barely able to open his eyes, when it wasn’t so sure. The iratzes were working, the medicines were stopping the poisons, he was recovering.

He didn’t seek comfort. He had trained himself out of looking for a hand to hold or soft reassurance. Tessa had learned how to see when he needed it. He couldn’t ask for it, even now, all grown up, he couldn’t ask for it. So she pulled him in and held him close and waited for the warrior to fall away enough that the little boy inside could grab hold.

She sang to him that night. She sang him lullabies that she knew from her childhood and ballads she had learned from her friends and when he was half asleep she sang him songs his mother knew. Linette sang all the time and Tessa had picked up the words and the rhythms to songs in Welsh that had become her children’s favourites. The pattern of the language easier in song than it was to speak.

“I didn’t know you could sing,” Will said. It was the first thing he had said since he’d been brought in. He’d been too injured for words before. Her chest relaxed. They had said he would recover. They had said he would be fine. She finally believed it.

“I’m terrible at singing, you’re obviously still delirious,” she told him but she sang the same one again with her lips against his feverish forehead and his unbandaged hand fisted in her dress like a child’s.


	3. Shared Bath

Will was recovering slower than he would have liked. He was sitting in the infirmary bed barely able to sit up and still soaked in blood.

“That poison would have killed anyone bit a Shadowhunter, it’s only been a few hours, stop whining,” Tessa told him from where she sat beside the bed.

“I am injured to hear such callous words from my own wife!” he said.

“I am injured to hear my husband carrying on like he’s on his death bed when he is clearly not,” she said.

“There is blood in my eyebrows and it has dried,” Will said.

“A petty annoyance when you could be dead,” Tessa pointed out but she got up and called the maid to have a tub dragged up to the infirmary and filled.

When it was done she helped Will climb in and then took off her own gear and climbed in with him. Water sloshed out onto the floor making her laugh as she settled in behind him so he could lean back against her. He said nothing, just smiled as she started to wash his hair.

“We should do this more often,” he said.

“You nearly dying? I’d rather not,” she said.

“Sharing a bathtub, but next time with less blood and poison,” he said.

His eyes had fluttered shut. The water was warm and his fingers found her ankle to stroke as she rubbed soap into his hair over and over until the water was stained red but her fingers could move through the strands easily.

He leaned against her and she wrapped her arms around his neck. He was still exhausted and his temples still pounced but it didn’t seem like such a bad thing when he was here with her.


	4. Hello James

Will sat in the drawing room with his feet up and his book open. He glanced up and smiled as Tessa came into the room. She wore a dress made of something soft and green. She looked tired and beautiful. He started to read aloud from the middle of the sentence he was in.

She gave him a little smile as she came to sit beside him. She tucked herself in close to his side. Without pausing the story he lifted an arm so he could hold her. She put her head down against his shoulder and put her arm around his waist so she could hold him close.

He read to the end of the chapter before he paused to ask, “What’s wrong?”

“I hate being pregnant,” she told him without raising her head.

“Are you feeling ill again?” he asked. He ran his hand up her back and kissed the top of her head.

“I always feel ill, I think he’s never coming out. Why does it take so long?” she complained cuddling in a little tighter. He put down the book and used both arms to pull her closer.

“We still have months left, which is probably a good thing as we haven’t got a cradle and he’d have to sleep in a hat box. Or we could just put Charlotte’s new one in the hat box and take their cradle,” Will said.

“We are not stealing Matthew’s cradle nor are we putting our child in a hat box,” she said but he had made her chuckle and that made him worry less. Warlock pregnancies were notoriously difficult and no matter how many times Will was told that her life wasn’t in danger it did not stop the worries. He held her close and placed a hand on the swell of her stomach.

 _They are both strong and they will be in good health._ Jem had told him that and Will tried to believe it. He kissed her forehead and reached for the book again.

“Will!” her voice was sharp with surprise or fear and it snapped his attention back and he dropped the book.

“Are you well? Tess?” he didn’t try to keep the little spark of panic put of his voice.

“He moved,” she said and looked up at him with wide eyes. His immediate response was to scan the room but they were alone.

“He? Who moved?” he asked.

Her face broke into a smile that was purely happy as she laughed and said it again, “He moved. Give me your hand.”

She took his wrist and understanding washed through him as she put it to a lower place on her stomach. He leaned his head against hers and waited to see if it would happen again.

When it did, they both laughed.

“He’s actually in there,” Will said.

“I hope so or there is something direly wrong with me,” she said patting her stomach.

“We’re going to be someone’s parents,” Will said softly.

“We’re going to be James’ parents,” she said.

Will looked at her and she was still smiling and looking down. She said it easily, like it was simply a fact.

“Is that what you want to name him?” he asked.

“Of course it is,” she said looking up at him. “Isn’t it what you would choose too? I thought we hadn’t talked about it because we didn’t need to. We could call him something else.”

“No, we can not. You are right, there is no other name for him,” Will said smiling at her. He hadn’t mentioned it not because he thought it was an obvious answer but because he had feared that it wasn’t and that he would open difficult feelings for her if he brought it up.

She was still close against him. He tilted her face up and she kissed him with a smile still on her lips.

“Hello James,” Will said as he felt the faint movement below his palm again.


	5. No Idea

Will hadn’t cried in years. He’d intentionally broken that part of himself beyond all repair. It had been painful but near perfect. He didn’t cry. He hadn’t cried since he’d made Charlotte send his parents away.

But there were tears running down his face now.

The baby twisted up his tiny face in a yawn and blinked big golden eyes and Will’s tears kept coming. Will leaned down so that he could touch his forehead to James Herondale’s.

If this baby, only hours old, was going to be the first one to see him cry since his own childhood, he may as well have a secret to go with it.

“It’s a good thing you have your mother because I have no idea what I’m doing,” he whispered.

Jamie blinked at him again and this close his eyes were molten sunlight before he yawned and went back to sleep.


	6. New Years Eve

The party was over and all the guests gone home. It was just the four of them still in the drawing room. James was curled up on the rug by the fire wrapped in his father jacket so that the only piece of the boy that could be seen was his hair and one hand curled around a feather he had stolen from a lady’s hat. Lucie slept as well but she was draped across the chaise with her head on her mother’s lap.

Tessa played with her hair and smiled at her as the girl slept. She’d shaken her hair loose of its pins and the trails of it mixed with Lucie’s between her fingers.

“Happy New Year,” Will said coming to sit by them. He kissed her on the temple and looked at the children. “They’re getting so big.”

“I know,” she said and the look in her eyes was faraway.

“Tell me what you’re thinking,” he said.

“I’m not,” she said.

“Not thinking? I don’t believe that. You’re always thinking,” he said frowning and trying to figure out what was making her look at him so serious. She wasn’t quite frowning but she was thinking hard.

“I’m not getting any older,” she said. He didn’t answer her immediately and she continue, “I wasn’t sure, how much does a person really change in five years of even in ten? Seeing Sophie tonight made me sure. It’s only been two that they’ve been living in Idris and she looks different. Older. I don’t.”

Will got up and came to sit close enough that he could wrap his arms around her. No one else would be able to hear the anxiety in her voice but he could.

“We’ve always known that was a possibility,” he whispered into her hair.

“I know but I’ve never thought much of it until tonight. Do you think they will be too?” she didn’t actually say the word immortal as she touched her daughter’s cheek. She thought of Magnus and Ragnor and the other warlocks she knew and wondered if she could ever wish that type of life on someone she loved.

“No,” Will said gently. “I don’t think so.”

“But there’s never been anyone like them before. There’s no way to be sure,” she said.

“Do you love them?” Will asked.

“Don’t be absurd. I love them more than I thought I could love anything,” she said.

“Then it doesn’t matter. Whether they get 80 years or 800, they’ve got us. We’ll watch over them,” he said. She looked at him and he shrugged in acknowledgement of the thing she couldn’t say out loud. He made is voice softer and gentler when he said, “Someday you’ll watch over them but we’ve got many more of these parties to plan before then. We’re barely started on this lifetime Tess, don’t start worrying about the next one yet.”

She leaned against him and the watched the children sleep as the minutes of 1893 ticked forward. The minutes felt different now, not just a mark of time but a tally of something dearer.


	7. "Dodge"

“Do you ever think we should just stop this?” Will asked looking at the chaos in the room around them. Toys were scattered. Books were scattered. There was clothing in a heap. It was a disaster area where there had once been a nursery.

“They’ll clean it up when they’re finished,” Tessa said.

There was a shriek and Tessa and Will leaned apart as a nine year old girl with auburn hair dressed in training gear skidded between them with a teddy bear held in her hand. She held it like a weapon. She should have been hilarious but she was somehow just fierce with her braid coming loose around her face and a little glare on her face.

“Dodge!” she yelled and flung the bear across the room at a smaller girl who was perched on the end of the bed. She did. She dodged and came up flinging a piece of a toy train which hit the shrieker in the knee.

“They’re going to hurt each other,” Will said.

“I think that’s the point,” Tessa told him.

“Aren’t girls supposed to be the nice ones? Gentle creatures who have tea parties and pick flowers and learn to crochet? Why is our daughter a banshee with terrifying aim?” Will said.

“It’s probably your fault,” Tessa said.

“It is not my fault. I am a calming influence on all who know me. Lucie Herondale do not climb on top of that bookcase, you will fall and break your neck,” he said and the smaller girl, this one with dark brown hair and flashing blue eyes, dropped back to the ground and rolled behind a toy chest before a rain of wooden blocks could hit her.

“Delia, rules aren’t different for you,” Tessa added as Cordelia, the red head with the basket of blocks, tried a similar tactic to get to higher ground. She dropped to the ground as Lucie yelled, “Dodge,” again and the next round of their mad game started.

“James is probably off reading somewhere, possibly picking flowers, while these two run rampant,” Will said. Tessa took his arm and surveyed the battlefield. She shook her head and finally stepped in to call a stop to the game with orders that the room be fit for habitation before dinner. The girls stood in the mass of toys and looked around at it and then at each other in dismay.

“I love you, you little banshees,” Will told the girls before they walked away and they both stuck their tongues out in a coordinated face that made Will and Tessa laugh.


	8. How Long Has It Been Since You Got Any Older?

“How long has it been?” a voice asked and Tessa’s head popped up from the pile of papers she was sorting. Jamie stood in the doorway. His dark hair twisted into strange shapes because he refused to brush it and his narrow little frame was taller than most seven year olds. His eyes were large and luminous and bright gold.

“Since what darling?” she asked.

“Since you got older,” he said.

She looked at him. Serious. So serious for someone so young. She considered him and considered every answer she might give to that question. She put the papers down and went to pull him over to sit with her. He sat down on the big blue armchair and she perched on the edge of the ottoman and took his hands.

“About ten years, maybe a little longer, it’s hard to say for sure,” she told him. There were some people you did not lie to, even when they weren’t yet old enough to wear long pants. Jamie was one of those people. He would have believed a lie because he trusted her and it felt painfully unfair to meet that trust with anything less than the truth.

“Because you are a warlock,” he said.

“Yes,” she told him.

“And you’re a shadowhunter,” he said.

“Yes,” she said.

“And I am too,” he said, “Because you’re my mother. I am too.”

“A little bit of both, yes, more Shadowhunter in you than warlock though,” she said with a smile. It had never been a secret. Not in the family nor in the Clave had it ever been a secret. Tessa hated it sometimes, the being different, but she was always glad that it was not a secret.

“But there’s warlock too,” he said, “There’s magic. I’ve got magic.” The last statement was not a question. It was a statement. He said it like he might say, I have black hair or I have a sister. He simply said it.

“What kind of magic?” she asked.

His face broke into a smile. A happy childlike smile that erased the too serious expression in an instant. He stood up, he pulled away from her. As part of their training, Shadowhunter children had to demonstrate mastery of skills and he stood like he was about to perform one of those demonstrations for his tutor. Straight and proud and just a little nervous.

He looked up at her with eyes like sunshine and a smile even brighter before he began. He wavered and he blinked out of sight. There was a dark spot in the shape of a boy and it was imperfect, she could see his shoes but he was invisible. It lasted less than a minute before he stood there again, giggling and breathing hard like he’d done something difficult.

She reached out to touch him and in a fit of giggles he flung himself into her arms. He laughed and she held him feeling overwhelmed. When she’d learned of her powers it had hurt, it had been terrifying and she had never quite imagined magic being a thing to make someone giggle and cuddle. But then, she hadn’t had anyone to catch her and hold her and tell her that she wasn’t a monster masquerading as a girl. Jamie didn’t doubt his own goodness, not then, not yet, someday someone would hurt him over this but for now his mother tightened her arms around him and held it all at bay.

“That’s incredible,” she told him, “Even I can’t do that.”

And with all the unthinking glee of a child he said, “You and me can be warlocks together. Always and always. Forever.”

She smiled to hold back the threat of tears and found herself caught between the hope and the dread that it was true and he would live forever just like she would. She held him, this child who outgrew his shoes twice a year and was more alive than anyone else she knew and balanced on that edge between hope and dread.

She kissed him on the head and sat him down to teach him what she knew about using magic so would never have to stumble about and guess at it like she did. One way or another, the future would come and she would be damned if he ever had to face it alone.


	9. I Just Want This

1878

Tessa’s eyes were dark and hurt. The words had come out in a rush. Will couldn’t quite remember them now that they had been flung out into the world like knives. A moment before she had sat beside him and read her little book of poems and looked so at peace. He had watched her while pretending to do everything but. She was beautiful and being near her was enough to calm the raging lonely thing that lived under his breastbone where his heart should have been.

“I just want this,” he had whispered in a language that he knew she didn’t speak and she had looked up, eyes bright and catching the firelight as she met his gaze. The indirect light softened all her features turning her from a girl into a watercolour painting. His heart had contracted but it hadn’t stopped him. He’d lashed out and said something unforgivable. Again.

Because the lonely thing couldn’t be allowed to win. It couldn’t be allowed to reach out and hold on like it wanted so badly to do. He couldn’t risk it. He couldn’t risk her. It didn’t matter how much he wanted. He would not allow his selfishness to outweigh her safety. Never. He looked blankly at the spot where she had been and could almost see the shattered pieces of the illusion of peaceful nights of poetry and firelight.

 

* * *

 

1888

She sat in the firelight and he didn’t quite know why he couldn’t stop the smile on his face. She had a little journal in front of her and she was writing down notes with a pen he’d given her as a birthday gift. She looked up at him and she was that watercolour painting again and he remembered that night so many years before in vivid painful colour. This time, she smiled at him and he didn’t pretend he wasn’t staring.

“What do you want?” she asked with just a touch of sarcasm and a little tilt of her head that made him smile at her.

“I just want this,” he told her in a language that she did speak. The lonely thing in his chest still woke up sometimes, it still curled around his heart and squeezed until it hurt but whenever it happened he had this. He came over to gather her close and whisper fragments of poems into her ear. When she fit herself to him, the lonely thing slunk away to leave him with his peaceful night of poetry and firelight.


	10. Will and his Baby

Will hadn’t cried in years. He’d intentionally broken that part of himself beyond all repair. It had been painful but near perfect. He didn’t cry. He hadn’t cried since he’d made Charlotte send his parents away.

But there were tears running down his face now.

The baby twisted up his tiny face in a yawn and blinked big golden eyes and Will’s tears kept coming. Will leaned down so that he could touch his forehead to James Herondale’s.

If this baby, only hours old, was going to be the first one to see him cry since his own childhood, he may as well have a secret to go with it.

“It’s a good thing you have your mother because I have no idea what I’m doing,” he whispered.

Jamie blinked at him again and this close his eyes were molten sunlight before he yawned and went back to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is super short and I don't remember writing it but I am kind of attached to the idea of Will having carefully learned how to suppress his ability to cry when he was upset but not being able to control the reaction over something happy. Also Will being a mess with his children.


	11. After an Injury 2

Will was recovering slower than he would have liked. He was sitting in the infirmary bed barely able to sit up and still soaked in blood.

“That poison would have killed anyone bit a Shadowhunter, it’s only been a few hours, stop whining,” Tessa told him from where she sat beside the bed.

“I am injured to hear such callous words from my own wife!” he said.

“I am injured to hear my husband carrying on like he’s on his death bed when he is clearly not,” she said.

“There is blood in my eyebrows and it has dried,” Will said.

“A petty annoyance when you could be dead,” Tessa pointed out but she got up and called the maid to have a tub dragged up to the infirmary and filled.

When it was done she helped Will climb in and then took off her own gear and climbed in with him. Water sloshed out onto the floor making her laugh as she settled in behind him so he could lean back against her. He said nothing, just smiled as she started to wash his hair.

“We should do this more often,” he said.

“You nearly dying? I’d rather not,” she said.

“Sharing a bathtub, but next time with less blood and poison,” he said.

His eyes had fluttered shut. The water was warm and his fingers found her ankle to stroke as she rubbed soap into his hair over and over until the water was stained red but her fingers could move through the strands easily.

He leaned against her and she wrapped her arms around his neck. He was still exhausted and his temples still pounded but it didn’t seem like such a bad thing when he was here with her.


End file.
